Saturday, September 12
Political pressure on government statisticians and private forecasters risks sending markets down a rabbit-hole, which could suppress volatility today but lead to seismic reality checks in the future. U.S. President Donald Trump has side-swiped both private and public sector economists this month, firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics boss for what he described as "rigged" jobs data and then lambasting Goldman Sachs for tariff-related research he didn't agree with. These moves seem alarming, even if there are some mitigating factors. Trump is hardly the first person to criticize BLS payrolls data. It has been under scrutiny for years, not because of fears of bias, but because of low survey response rates and delays, which have often resulted in large changes to past data. The most recent r
